On Thursday June 30th and Friday 1st July, approximately 100 people attended the first international conference on Aesthetics, Fashion and Psychology hosted at London College of Fashion (LCF) and co-organised by the University of Leeds. I was one of the co-chairs of the conference and moderated the inaugural panel discussion.
The conference aimed to promote psychological and philosophical study, research and discussion of the aesthetic aspects of fashion. More broadly, the aim was to contribute to research on everyday aesthetics, as well as to offer a distinctive participatory model for interdisciplinary work involving philosophers, psychologists and fashion researchers.
Thursday evening initiated the proceedings with a panel discussion, which was open to the public and produced interesting discussion and debate around the relationships between philosophy, psychology and fashion. Panellists included London-based fashion designer Oscar Quiroz, Hannah Almasi (former editor of Grazia), Dr Carolyn Mair (LCF) and Dr Aaron Meskin (Leeds). Issues taken up by the panel and audience alike included reasons for the relative neglect of fashion by philosophy, recent interest in the psychology of fashion, and importantly the potential role of psychology and philosophy in fashion education.
Image credit: Metamorphosis Stage 1 by Maria Karpova